Chris's Blog

Friday, December 01, 2006

Top 25 GCN Games

Since the GameCube era is essentially over for me (though I have intentions to pick up some of the games I missed in due time) I figured I’d do my Top 25 GameCube games.

25 – Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes – Underrated remake. Added in some of the better aspects of MGS2 while improving the graphics and overall gameplay of the original. I’d say the original holds a higher place in my heart but this does a fine job of replicating it.

24 – Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell – Very well done spy action. More realistic than Metal Gear Solid with a more grounded in reality plot. Dunno why I never picked up the sequels.

23 – Animal Crossing – While addicting for a short while, the charm the game exudes is wonderful. Plus I got all the NES games opened up. Which turns my house into a veritable arcade.

22 – Pikmin 2 – Retained and expanded on the original in so many ways. Co-op element was also very well implemented. Also playing the multiplayer and sending hordes of Pikmin after each other is very entertaining.

21 – Super Monkey Ball – A great action puzzler. Some very tough levels and some very entertaining mini games. My favorite in particular was Monkey Bowling.

20 – Ikaruga – Old-school shooting at its finest. Very tough and I have yet to beat it still. I’d love to see games like this continue to be made.

19 – MVP Baseball 2005 – Probably the best baseball game I’ve played. Had lots of options, a great pitching game, and a great franchise mode.

18 – Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem – A very good horror story with a great plot and one of the few games with honest to goodness good voice acting. Playing the different styles of characters was fun as was bashing up the demons of whatever those things were supposed to be.

17 – Resident Evil 0 – A bit underrated in my view. Brought some very good tag team elements to the franchise and set up the first in a convoluted way.

16 – Skies of Arcadia Legends – The first of these kinds of RPGs (post-FFVII 3D RPG) I really liked. Fun story with likeable characters and some decent over world gameplay and the tried and true RPG gameplay everyone loves.

15 – Madden NFL 2005 – I’d still be playing if my game hadn’t decided it was going to lock up every half time. Featuring the always enjoyable Madden gameplay with a decent franchise mode. Really interested in picking up the Wii version of 2007.

14 – Mario Kart Double Dash – In my opinion the most underrated Mario Kart and far better than 64. The double cart gimmick was fun and some of the course designs are just fantastic. Plus it also remided the pitiful Rainbow Road from 64. Thank god.

13 – Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door – Added on to and improved the stellar gameplay of the original Paper Mario and provided just as good humor to boot. I was at the end when my memory card crapped out on me. Grr.

12 – Metroid Prime 2: Echoes – Great sequel to original Prime. Added some more classic weapons and added to the interesting plotline. Suffered similar fate as PM2.

11 – Super Mario Sunshine – Didn’t feature the variety of locales of SM64 but did do very in bringing the overall feel of Mario 64 and improving on it in some places. Plus I’ll go on record to saying I thought the commercial for the game was hilarious.

10 – Pikmin – The 2nd game I ever bought for my Cube. Excellent game and very original. Too bad some people dismiss it for the 30 days mechanic. It was a story vehicle and made sense to the game.

9 – Tales of Symphonia – One of the best RPGs I’ve ever played. Fun battle system, good story, and enjoyable overworld gameplay. Couldn’t really ask for more from an RPG.

8 – Resident Evil – Improved in so many ways from the original it isn’t even fair. Added new story elements and some interesting bad guys to the mix. Wish they’d give the treatment to RE2. Now that’d be fantastic.

6 – Mega Man Anniversary Collection – A true testament to the fantastic NES Mega Man series. All 8 are very solid games that hold up fairly well even today.

5 – Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker – The most controversial Zelda ever and for very stupid reasons. A great story, great gameplay, and the best overworld for a Zelda when it was released. A tad easy but that doesn’t matter that much to me.

4 – Viewtiful Joe – Old school platforming mixed with new school gameplay mechanics. One of the more original games to be released on the GCN and still just as fun to play as it was back in 2003.

3 – Resident Evil 4 – A necessary update to the franchise. Some of the beat graphics of this generation, mixed with intense gameplay and sets up for the rest of the franchise. Nobody can tell me that they don’t think Wesker has something up his sleeves.

2 – Super Smash Bros. Melee – The first game I ever got for my GameCube. Easily my most played game to. Got a big boost the last year and a half finally getting roommates who are also SSBM players. Hopefully Brawl is jut as excellent.

1 – Metroid Prime – Brought the franchise to 3D in a spectacular way. Kept the feeling of the classics while adding new things to the mix.

I really loved my GameCube. All in all I had 43+ games for it and none of them I think would fall under the realm of bad in anyway. I’m sure some would disagree though. And for the end I’m doing one last list. The Top 5 I’d like to pick up eventually.

5 –Chibi Robo – I loved the concept when it was introduced a few years back but never got around to getting it.

4 – Splinter Cell sequels – Why I never picked these up I don’t know.

3 – Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat – I’ll give Nintendo a lot of credit for making use of the bongos for a unique platformer idea.

2 – Luigi’s Mansion – I only played the demo during the launch and I liked what I saw.

1 – Fire Emblem – Been wanting to play this since I heard about the series when it wasn’t being released here.